A Muslim man who attended the same mosque as the Orlando shooter reported him to the FBI in 2014

Undated
photo from a social-media account of Omar
Mateen.Thomson
Reuters

A Muslim man who attended the same mosque in Fort Pierce,
Florida, as the gunman who opened fire at a gay nightclub in
Orlando earlier this month says that he reported the
attacker to the FBI in 2014.

In
an op-ed for The Washington Post, Mohammed A.
Malik, an entrepreneur from Fort Pierce, said
that a big reason why he decided to write the op-ed was to
counter Donald Trump's recent assertion that, even if
Muslim-Americans harbor suspicions about fellow Muslims, they
don't report those suspicions or cooperate with law
enforcement.

"This is
a common idea in the United States. It's also a lie.
First, Muslims like me can't see into the hearts of other
worshipers. (Do you know the hidden depths of everyone in
your community?) Second, he's also wrong that we
don't speak up when we're able," he wrote.

"Trump's assertions about our community — that we have the
ability to help our country but have simply declined to do so —
are tragic, ugly and wrong," Malik added of the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee.

The FBI
has categorically denied the notion that Muslim-Americans
don't cooperate with law-enforcement officials in terrorism
investigations.

FBI director James Comey said in a press conference last week:

"They do not want people committing violence, either in their
community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most
productive relationships are with people who see things and tell
us things who happen to be Muslim. It's at the heart
of the FBI's effectiveness to have good relationships with these
folks."

The
Islamic Center of Fort Pierce in Fort Pierce, Florida, on June
12.Joe
Skipper/Reuters

Malik said that he met Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old man
identified as the gunman who killed 49 people at the Orlando
nightclub, Pulse, and his family during the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan in 2006. Mateen was always quiet, Malik wrote, but
he never showed outward signs of radical or violent behavior.

"He was quiet — then and always — and let his dad do the
talking," Malik said.

"He was the most quiet guy — he never talked to
anyone," Shafiq Rahman, the imam, told reporters last
week."There was no indication at all
he would do something violent."

Imam
Syed Shafeeq Rahman of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce offers a
prayer for victims of the Orlando shooting, in Fort Pierce,
Florida, on June 12.Joe
Skipper/Reuters

Malik and Mateen became friendly and stayed in touch
on and off for the next decade. Their last conversation was by
phone in mid-May, when Mateen called Malik to tell him about a
vacation he had taken with his father to Orlando.

Mateen was first investigated by the FBI in 2013 after he
threatened his coworkers and made vague allusions to foreign
terrorist organizations. The case was closed when authorities
concluded that Mateen did not pose a substantive
national-security threat.

Mateen was investigated by the FBI again in 2014, however,
this time because of a tip it had received from Malik about
Mateen's potential ties to an American suicide bomber who
killed himself in Syria on behalf of Al Qaeda. The
bomber, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, attended the same
mosque as Malik and Mateen. He had been watching videos of the
extremist, Yemen-based imam Anwar al-Awlaki as he
radicalized.

Malik wrote:

"Immediately after Moner's attack [in Syria], news reports
said that American officials didn't know anything about him; I
read that they were looking for people to give them some
background. So I called the FBI and offered to tell investigators
a bit about the young man. Agents asked me if
there were any other local kids who might resort to violence in
the name of Islam. No names sprang to mind."

Shortly thereafter, however, Mateen told Malik that
he, too, had been watching videos
of Awlaki.

Anwar
al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric linked to Al Qaeda's Yemen-based
wing, gives a religious lecture in an unknown location in this
still image taken from video released by Intelwire.com on
September 30, 2011.REUTERS/Intelwire.com

Malik said that he contacted the FBI again to let them know
that Omar had been watching the imam's videos. The FBI opened a
file on him but subsequently closed the case when it found
little or no evidence that he was radicalized or had plans
of carrying out an attack.

During Mateen's rampage on Pulse, however, he called 911
and expressed solidarity with Moner
Mohammad — as well as with the Boston Marathon bombers and
ISIS.

Malik wrote:

"As news
reportsthis week have
made clear, Omar did have a dark outlook on life.
Partly, he was upset at what he saw as racism in the United
States — against Muslims and others. When he worked as a security
guard at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, he told me visitors
often made nasty or bigoted remarks to him about Islam. He
overheard people saying ugly things about African Americans,
too."

A victim told reporters from Florida Hospital Orlando last
week that when Mateen was holding hostages in the nightclub's
bathroom, he asked if there were any black people in the
room. When a man replied that there were "six or
seven," Mateen said, "You know, I don't have a problem with black
people. This is about my country. You guys have suffered
enough."

Those who knew Mateen have told reporters and police
that his mood swings bordered on bipolar. His ex-wife has said
that he beat her regularly for offenses like not doing laundry,
while two performers at the gay nightclub Mateen frequented — and
later carried out his rampage — said that they stopped
speaking to him after he threatened them with a knife for making
an offhand comment about Islam.

One of Mateen's former coworkers, Daniel Gilroy, said
that he distanced himself from Mateen while they were working as
security guards in Fort Pierce, Florida, because Mateen made
bigoted comments that made Gilroy uncomfortable.

"He was very racist, very sexist," Gilroy told The New York
Times last week. "Anti-Jew, anti-homosexual, and he
made it known by derogatory statements as much as he could."

Worshippers
listen as Rahman offers a prayer for victims of the Orlando
shooting in Fort Pierce, Florida, on June 12.Joe Skipper/Reuters

In conversations with the Orlando Police
Department's Crisis Negotiation Team during Sunday morning's
attack, Mateen identified himself as an Islamic
soldier, according to a transcript of the calls released by the
FBI, and demanded that the US stop bombing Iraq and
Syria.

Ronald Hopper, the assistant FBI agent in charge,
reiterated on Monday that Mateen was radicalized domestically and
not directed by any foreign terrorist group.

Mateen was living in Fort Pierce when he rented a car and drove
to Orlando to carry out the attack on the night of June
11. He was armed with an assault-style rifle and a handgun
that he had legally bought days before. He was a security guard
and had a Florida firearms license that allowed him to carry
concealed weapons.

The attack was the deadliest mass shooting by one person in US
history.